The video shows a man in a Flyers jersey throwing the first punch seen on tape. When one of the Rangers fans tries to intervene, he’s thrown to the ground and surrounded by the three Flyers fans who pummel him.

One of the men who was beaten is a decorated Marine and Woodbridge, N.J. police officer. Neal Auricchio, 33, was taken to an area hospital and required stitches to close his wounds. He’s now recovering at his home in New Jersey.

“He’s upset about what happened. It was a tough situation. He’s a life-long Ranger fan and he had an opportunity to go to a special event and things just got carried away,” his father, Neal Auricchio, Sr. “Sports is supposed to be a good time, you go there, you root for your team, you have fun with your friends and then you go home. This kind of stuff should never happen at a sporting event, there’s no justification for this at a sporting event, ever.”

Hockey is the game where the players often fight, hitting each other with sticks, right? And hockey players are the ones who often go through life with teeth missing, right?

So does it come as any great shock to anyone that hockey fans are just as violent as its players? Everyone who participated in this brawl should be held accountable, whether they were on the winning end or the losing end of it. They should all be arrested, charged with assault (the window washer who was paid off to squirt Rangers fans should be charged with inciting a riot). If any of these violent hockey fans has children under the age of 18. the children must be removed from their care and custody. We cannot have such violent, malevolent people raising children.

How can you even suggest that two people who did not start a fight and only tried to defend themselves should be arrested and have there children taken away. The two are brutally beaten while the others probably don’t have a scratch on them. His 2 week old son is perfectly safe living with a cop and war veteran. All he wanted to do was go to a hockey game and eat a cheese steak then go home.

So, using your logic, there should be 15-20 thousand violent hockey fans causing mayhem after attending every hockey game, in addition to the millions of fans who watched it on tv. Wonder why that doesn’t happen? Oh, that’s right, because watching a violent sport doesn’t cause violence.

These were just a bunch of aholes who would have done this no matter what sporting event they had just left.

I guess these immature punks were feeling really powerful while they ganged up on the father and his son. Hopefully they will be apprehended and sentenced to a long stay in a dangerous prison environment. Lowlifes such as these should never be permitted to walk the streets freely after the criminal justice system becomes aware of their inability to refrain from attacking other human beings over such an ‘important issue’ as who their favorite team is.

Two days later, Edward Neary said he was one of the guys police were looking for—via the Facebook page of SB Nation’s Flyers blog Broad Street Hockey, which was actively attempting to find whoever was responsible and help the police investigation.

Neary, a 2009 high school graduate, commented on a post of the video: “it was me and my friends, do something about it,” then used a homophobic slur. After another commenter noted that Neary’s name and face were obviously visible, Neary wrote “how dumb do I look knocking someone out pretty sure they look dumb eatin concrete”.